Sports Day 2010

Saturday arrived and may be the hottest day of the season arrived at the same time. It was 28°C on the 7th of February and not a ‘little white fluffy cloud’ anywhere in sight. We had a sports day at the IISER Mohali ,the second sports day of the institute.
All the students turned up in their team colours and the games began. It was a fantastic event. It was breath-taking at times to see the passion with which students participated. Of course, the faculty members had as much fun as the students did. Football, cricket and volleyball finals were the events which began by the day, followed by the indoor games finals badminton, table tennis, carom,& chess which kept the enthusiasm alive.
The tournaments were happening for a week ,but it was the final day which made a great impact on all of us as the different teams battled for the first position. Everyone contributed in putting up a successful sports day event. The Sports Day was organized in such a way that it united the teachers and students from different batches. They had worked together to train, to cheer, to project teams identity and to win! This definitely brought teamwork and unity, and whenever these two things are present together, bonding is assured.
Talking about the Team Events-
Not just bat and the ball……IISER CRICKET :
Bolstered by charismatic captain Achyut Priya Shukla and his team clinched the first place in the cricket where as the second place was bagged by the team under the captaincy of Abhishek Goswami. The devastating barrage from Kapil Dave who had an excellent series, during the finals coming in the opening slot and being not out through out the innings was certainly appreciated , he was given the man of the tournament award.
This is not ‘just a game’…… IISER FOOTBALL

This was the first match played on the sports day. The three teams were formed A ,B ,C and were led by Mohit Tanga, Bharat Kohli, Prabhanjan Borwankar respectively. In the first round all the teams restored their sanity levelling the score, later on fates where simplified for team A and teams B in the shootout where they marched into the stupendous finals. Team A led by Mohit Tanga took the day away with a scintillating win.
Volleyball
The Volleyball finals was a thrilling event where the team led by Surajeet Das and Vikram Singh suffered a humble defeat in a deuce which kept them in the second place while Shashank Yadav and his company won by a narrow margin, avoiding the same fate and gaining the first place.
The saga of the team events ended here. Coming to the indoor games , Abhilasha Joshi showed some stunning talents in all the events among the girls and was judged as the overall winner.
Such a wonderful event wouldn’t have been possible without the coordinators. Of course a special thanks is due to Dr. Jagdeep Singh and Dr Sanjay Singh who helped the students in booking a ground at the SGSS college for all the IISER-M sports events. However, the person who ‘made the Sports Day happen’ was our sports secretary for the year 08-09, Anurag Kanaujia. He took the sports at IISER-M to a new horizon.
Lastly I would say that, success is relative and depends upon individual’s perspective and this was our take home message at the end of the day.